Things were so much more fun on Saturday mornings when I was young.
Nothing...and I mean NOTHING...was more exciting to a pre-teen megacartoonfan (no surprise I grew up and remain to this day an animation buff) than the fall season of new Saturday morning stuff. I'm not exaggerating when I say that my life REVOLVED around this every year. I would set my alarm, get up early and watch the stuff that was on before the REAL stuff would even air. Anyone remember "The Patchwork Family"? It was on CBS at like 6AM before "Captain Kangaroo". Rags the puppet and the chick who hosted it were a part of my Saturday morning routine for years. Normally I passed on the Captain though, for some reason that show just never held my interest. No matter, by this time the sisters were up too and they would've preferred to watch "Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse", which suited me fine. When that was on, I was busy eating my S'mores Crunch cereal anyway.
So then came the good stuff. Ahhhhhh...there was so much of it. There was....erm...well, this one...ummm...OK, remember...uhhhhh...well, shit, you know what? I pretty much don't remember ANYTHING that was good. But I know back then, IT HAD TO BE ON THE TV.
I do remember a lot of the garbage though, and I think the reason for that is as I got older, it was less about cartoons and more about selling toys. When video games exploded in the 1980's, we saw the first of what would be MANY cartoons based on video games.
Oh, hell yeah. PAC-MAN! This cartoon was actually pretty stupid, but because Pac-Man was bigger than Jesus and the Beatles put together at this point of time, this was the cartoon that had everyone under the age of 12 hyperventilating. ABC were the lucky ones who got the show, and every other network knew they didn't have a prayer against it so they put on the least likely to succeed cartoons up against the Pac-Man timeslot. But something funny happened along the way...
After 2 years, this show was nowhere to be found. Apparently the fan base outgrew the whole thing, and the show vanished. This was certainly not helped by the shows that came along for Donkey Kong, Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Q*Bert, Jungle Hunt (JUNGLE HUNT?!) and who knows what else, since every one of those knockoffs were so horrible that they were all replaced by Looney Tunes reruns before the Macy's Parade happened that year.
Nonetheless, this was a huge event at the time. Sadly, it didn't ultimately curtail the NBC at 9AM disease that infested televisions for the better part of a decade.
Sing along with me...LAAAAAA LAAAAA LALALALAAAAA...LAAAAAAA LALAAAA LAAA LAAAAAAAA...
Yes...my GOD, look at them all! They're EVERYWHERE!
Let me see how I can put this in the simplest of terms.
I.
Hated.
The.
Fucking.
Smurfs.
Thank GOD I grew older, and with the networks gradually weaning off of Saturday morning cartoons and adding more live stuff, not to mention "Saturday Good Morning America" and all the stuff we see today, FOX stepped in. I was a teenager and bored with the cartoons I was seeing anymore. Turns out the good stuff was on FOX. "Batman", "Eek! the Cat", "X-Men"...and yes, the big blue ultimate good guy...
...The Tick.
Simply put, and those who know me or this show well enough already know how I feel about this show, this was the funniest cartoon ever made. Period.
I think back on Saturday mornings and smile fondly. It's a shame the kids today can't have what we had.
Of course, they DO have 394 other channels to find their shows on, not to mention DVDs and On-Demand...hmmmm...ya know what? WE GOT SCREWED! YOU KIDS TODAY HAVE IT TOO EASY!
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